Career – Page 12 – Life @ U of T

I Wrote a Novel (Literally)

On Monday, I finished my first novel draft. It was 192 pages in total and just over 58000 words long. It'd taken me seven months to complete, and I wrote it for a fourth year seminar course (VIC479Y1) called The…

A Year of Doing Things I’m Afraid Of

A picture of the blog I'm currently writing with the caption: "writing my last blog post" — Meta

When I first met with my supervisors to begin blogging for Life at U of T, I was suddenly unbelievably, irrationally nervous. I confidently applied for the role of Career Centre Blogger because I loved to write, I wanted to think more about my career, and I was qualified for the position. But as soon as I stepped back on campus to begin writing for the year, I was filled with self-sabotaging doubt.

The End of the School Year

The end of the school year is here, and I don’t know about you, but as much of a relief as it is to have made it through another year of school, it’s also kind of bittersweet for me. For…

Knowing My Limits

Source: http://copewithlife.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/stress.gif

Looking back, this was probably the busiest school year of my life. I balanced five co-curricular clubs, a full course load, and a weekly blog, which sometimes left me feeling stressed out and burnt-out. As the year draws to a close, final exams, essays, and projects and commitments are naturally starting to pile up, which have only increased my stress levels. I’ve barely been getting any sleep, and Kraft dinners have become a staple in my diet. Long story short: I have too much on my plate right now (macaroni included).

In Which I Write a Letter to First Year Me

ALT="A girl staring off into the distance"

Hey, It's been a while.

In Which Change is Not a Bad Thing

ALT="A sunset" — Things did not go well into the sunset

When I first got to university, I was convinced that I knew my path in life; things would go swimmingly. I was going to finish strongly academically with a degree in history and cinema studies, move on to do graduate school and eventually become a filmmaker or get a job within the film industry. I had no time to think about pursuing extracurriculars or consider my hobbies as important or even get into a romantic relationship. I had a concrete route and I wasn’t planning on exploring the woods around me. But a year later, I slowly got involved with my student council. I started seriously taking up and practicing photography, changing my plans for what I wanted to do after university with every photo session I couldn’t help booking. I had adamantly told myself that I wasn’t going to date in university, and I went and got myself a partner.

In Which I Survive Election Season

It's that time of year again. You probably have seen it: posters of smiling faces scattered all around campus, Facebook advertisements and endorsements all over your news feed, people stopping you on your walk to class to ask if they could just take five minutes of your time. Yep, I'm talking about election season.

Exploring Online Identity Through LinkedIn

A realistic portrayal of my LinkedIn experience

I'm about as good at operating LinkedIn as my grandmother is at using Facebook. To put it simply, I'm not the best at LinkedIn, which is why I attended the LinkedIn Lab workshop at the Career Centre. I recently made a profile a few months ago when I realized that building an online brand is extremely important when finding a job. It's kind of unfortunate: young professionals nowadays need a solid resume, a unique LinkedIn profile, a blog, and a good online footprint in order to get a job, while other professionals who didn't grow up with the Internet just needed a good resume.

Networking is Getting a Little Easier

A wordle of job-related words — Job-related words... get it? Picture via Pixabay

So, networking is something I’ve always struggled with. I’m afraid people will think I’m trying to schmooze. I’m afraid of awkward silences. I’m, overall, a very self-conscious person when it comes to networking. However, after going to workshops and networking events—mainly because of my Career Centre Student Blogger job—networking is starting to get a little easier every time.

The Bullet Journal: Does It Actually Work?

Picture of page of bullet journal that has two points: "make bullet journal" and "write blog"

My productivity is directly related to me keeping an agenda or calendar. For example, I still haven’t bought a 2017 agenda, and I’ve been tremendously less productive than I have been with an agenda. So, in my current predicament of lacking an agenda and suffering the consequences, I decided to try out a bullet journal for the first time. I've read stories online about professionals changing their professional and personal lives through the bullet journal, and about the benefits of using bullet journals for career planning. However, I never got around to trying it out. I guess you could say I needed a bullet journal to remember to get a bullet journal. The first thing I wrote down in my bullet journal was:

“Make bullet journal”

Category: Career (page 12)